Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL), a leading Republican demanding answers in relation to the origins of the Chinese coronavirus and the U.S. government’s involvement in funding the Wuhan lab, said the origins of the virus have been silenced, in part, because of the conflict of interest with Dr. Anthony Fauci and the scientific community.

During an appearance on Fox News this week, Waltz, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, spoke about the emergence of reports suggesting bureaucrats effectively obstructed efforts to investigate the origins of the Chinese coronavirus during the Trump era.

“I think what Vanity Fair and these Fauci emails are showing are three key things,” Waltz, the first Green Beret to serve in Congress, began.

“We have a whole ecosystem of scientists in the United States and around the world that are financially, because of the grant monies,  professionally and reputationally heavily invested in this type of research and had every incentive to make sure that the narrative— that you know, they were wrong and that it leaked out — was suppressed,” he explained.

“Number two, you had a media that as soon as President Trump said it could have been Wuhan and China’s at fault, reflexively, in an antibody-like response, sought the opposite narrative,” he said, also placing blame on what he described as the “massive Chinese government propaganda campaign.”

“All of those things, I think, have suppressed this story,” he said, asking what the Biden’s administration’s position is going forward on “this type of research that puts kind of — you know I described it as the virus on steroids to see how it spread.”

“The Fauci-led scientific community, what was described in that Vanity Fair article, you know, for this to come out that they were wrong and it actually leaked, would kind of be like what Chernobyl or Three Mile Island did to nuclear scientists,” he added.

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Waltz’s remarks follow the publication of a Vanity Fair article which suggested State Department investigators were “repeatedly advised not to open a ‘Pandora’s box’” in terms of investigating the origins of the Chinese coronavirus.

Per the report:

In one State Department meeting, officials seeking to demand transparency from the Chinese government say they were explicitly told by colleagues not to explore the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s gain-of-function research, because it would bring unwelcome attention to U.S. government funding of it.

In an internal memo obtained by Vanity Fair, Thomas DiNanno, former acting assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, wrote that staff from two bureaus, his own and the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, “warned” leaders within his bureau “not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19” because it would “‘open a can of worms’ if it continued.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) released a statement following the report.

“It is outrageous that people within our government worked to obstruct and censor the investigation into the origins of COVID-19, especially with regard to whether the virus emerged because of American-funded research at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology,” he said in a statement, adding, “Unelected bureaucrats need more oversight to ensure they are acting in the best interests of the American people.”

Waltz is among House Republicans demanding a briefing from the White House on $600,000 of taxpayer funding to the Wuhan Lab as the administration, and Dr. Fauci, specifically, attempts to dodge association with “gain of function” research.

“This statement amongst a litany of mounting evidence raises legitimate concerns regarding the safety and security of federally funded research to the WIV,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) and Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK) on the House Science Committee wrote.

Waltz explained to the New York Post:

My committee has, has oversight of the Office of Science and Technology policy, right, which is the that’s the key science advisory office at the White House that directly advises the president. And the letter is getting at what is the role of OSTP, in this 90 day review of what intelligence we have on COVID [Chinese coronavirus] origin.

But we also want to know more broadly, what is OSTP’s position, what are they doing to review the policies and procedures that once led to the resumption of gain of function research more broadly? Not just WIV … although that’s one of the primary institutions that’s conducting this research.

“And then, what is their position on reviewing grants and sub-grants going forward?” he asked. “So how do we prevent this from happening again?”